


Woman King

by CoelacanthKing



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Amputation, Branding, Child Death, Gen, Mentions of non-con, Scarification, mentions of nudity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-13 00:59:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4501704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoelacanthKing/pseuds/CoelacanthKing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's royalty of a different kind. A hundred years from now, they'll call her a woman king.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Woman King

**Author's Note:**

> Furiosa's story hits home with me in a lot of ways. The idea for this fic came to me while listening to the Iron & Wine song of the same name. Coincidentally, the first chapter was written around the Dave Matthews Band song that inspired it.  
> The mention of the Saints is a bit of self-indulgent headcannon insertion. There's a reason I refer to Max as 'the most enduring human in the Wastes'.
> 
> I'm looking forward to posting the other chapters, they're coming fast!

 

 

_“If you can’t perform, you have no place here.”_

His words stayed with her as the Winchman dropped the lever that would lower the lift to the desert floor. Among her were Wretched, men all. Too weak or too old to work the lifts as cog fodder anymore, and so they, like her, were being tossed. Furiosa’s sisters had made sure she at least had a woven wrap with her before she went, so she didn’t stick out quite as much. Still. Being around so many unwashed, diseased bodies was a test of her mettle. Men gaped and motioned at her, and Furiosa knew that, certainly, she was most otherworldly thing they had ever seen.

From below came the cacophony of the Wretched. She could see them over the edge of the lift; a dirty desperate, writhing mass that reached up for her with ten thousand grasping hands. They looked like death to her… To be one of them was most likely worse than death. Furiosa decided that death wasn’t on the horizon for her just yet. She would _not_ join them.

Slowly, very slowly, she stepped backward, towards the rear of the lift. The Breakman and his assistant weren’t watching, focused on keeping those below from crawling up. She only hoped that one of the other men didn’t shout or cause them to look this way. Tying the wrap around her waist, she rubbed her hands together, said a small prayer, and began to climb an oversized chain back up to the Citadel.

In the Vault, she was to only one of the girls to do exercises. The others had stared and watched dumbly as Furiosa had performed push-ups, pull-ups, and even laps in their little glass cage. Her diligence seemed to be paying off overtime as she scaled the chain like a lizard up a rock wall. _Faster. Don’t let the walls get out of reach_. She was climbing so fast that she almost missed the vent that cut into the stone at an angle. She paused, and as she was lowered back toward it, Furiosa felt cool air gently buffet her face. She jumped, and her hands caught the stone lip of the vent easily. Only when she pulled herself into it did she realized how steep the angle actually was.

Heels over head, arms flailing, she tumbled down the vent at an almost sheer drop. She landed on her rump at the bottom, barely avoiding striking her head on anything sharp. Taking a minute get her head to quit spinning, Furiosa slowly began to pat herself down to check for any cuts or broken bones. Nothing. The only thing that was probably beyond repair was the wrap, but that was fine. She was free. She wasn’t with the Wretched. And she didn’t have a clue what to do next.

She could see, if she craned her neck, a pinprick of light that was most likely the top of the vent. She had fallen that far? Right now she found herself in a small cubbyhole of stone, the only entrance being a square slot at one side, just large enough for someone her size to crawl through. Peeking out momentarily, she found that her alcove emptied out into a narrow tunnel running from left to right, with gurgling pipes and spluttering torches set along the walls.

_I’m in the War Boy tunnels._

Footsteps. Voices.

“Grate, I swear I heard something over here!”

“Oh you heard something alright. It’s those beetles running around in your head.”

Scuttling back into the alcove, Furiosa pressed herself against the back wall, drawing her legs up against her chest. She held her breath, breaking out into a sweat as the voices got closer and closer, louder and louder. _Don’t let them find me. Don’t let them find me._

“There’s nothing here. You’re losing it, Jii.”

“I swear! Maybe in the v-“

A face was looking in at her, belonging to a young boy maybe half her age. Powdery white skin made the blue of his eyes bright and vibrant, and several black lines were painted vertically on his lips. Head shaved clean. Another face pressed beside this one, a little older, skin just as pale and the area around his eyes painted with the same black paste.

_Children? What are they… no. Pups. War Pups._

It was a staredown, with Furiosa not exactly cowering, and the two Pups gazing at her like they were looking at the biggest meal of their life, but didn’t know how to get to it.

“…I think it’s a girl.”

“What do you know about girls?”

“What else is it supposed to be, then?” The older Pup paused, then reached out to grab a handful of her whites. Furiosa responded by planting her bare foot on his shoulder and giving a shove. He hit his head on the top of the slot and cursed, and his smaller companion had to giggle at this.

“Jii! Grate! Where’d you two lizards go?”

The two leaned out and glanced toward the sound of the voice. “We found something, Ace!” The older boy (she presumed this was Grate), rubbed the top of his head and gave her a salty look. “Wretched girl who thinks she’s boss.” From behind the Pups emerged a pair of the biggest boots Furiosa had ever seen, attached to legs clad in traditional War Boy darks. The young ones shuffled out of the way for him, and Furiosa found herself staring at the lumpy, stern face of a man. A _man_ , not a boy! All of the War Boys she’d ever seen had practically been children, but this fellow was old enough to be her father!

Eyes a watery grey, his head looked like it had been dunked in something used to lubricate car parts (which probably was the case). The pigment that gave the War Boys their pasty complexion was coming off of him in flakes, and a conglomeration of lumps and bumps were crammed onto one side of his neck. His mouth went slack when he saw her, and Furiosa noted that he held his jaw oddly, like it had been broken one too many times.

“Blessed V8. She’s no Wretched.” The man reached in and seized her wrist in a firm, calloused grip. He tugged, and in that moment Furiosa saw _his_ face again, and she was more afraid than she’d ever been in her entire life.

“Please,” she wavered, “You have to believe me. He tossed me. I don’t want to go back there, please.”

She didn’t think her plea would have had any effect on him. Yet the man stopped attempting to yank her out of the alcove, settling on giving her a hard look. He still held her wrist; out of an inability to believe her, she couldn’t say.

“Ace? What’s she on about?”

The man, Ace, worked his jaw in contemplation for a long while. Then: “Show me your neck, girl.”

Managing with him still holding onto her, Furiosa twisted her body to show them the back of her neck. The two Pups gasped and began to whisper frantically to each other. Ace scowled, mouth pressing into a crooked line, before he finally decided to let her go.

To speak properly to her, Ace had to lay down on his front, right on the gravelly tunnel floor, tapping his fingers on his crossed arms. “You don’t wanna go back. And you obviously ain’t keen on getting tossed to the Wretched.” Almost on cue, his eyes turned steely and sharp. Challenging her. “What would happen if I did either of those things?”

“I would fight you.” The words flew from her mouth, but instead of regretting them, Furiosa knew that she meant them. She would fight this man with tooth and nail, even if he was twice her size and weight. His smile was lopsided, and Furiosa felt that she was gaining a bit of his respect.

“You wanna survive?”

“I don’t _want_ to. I’m _going_ to.”

He nodded pendulously, considering her words. Finally, he shimmied out of the slot far enough to address the two Pups, who must have stuck around to see to outcome of this strange encounter.

“Jii, Grate. Go to the Mender, get our boss girl a pair of pants. Be sneaky about it.”

\---

They had shaved her head. Furiosa didn’t mourn the loss of her hair, but the sensation of having nothing there would take some getting used to. Not even a bit of fuzz, all the way down to her scalp. After the shave it had been given to the Pups to play with, and they had seized locks of her auburn hair and went shrieking and laughing down the tunnels with it, marveling at just how soft it was. Jii and Grate had stayed put, wanting to make sure that ‘their’ girl was taken care of.

She didn’t wear a shirt either. Her chest was flat enough, only the slightest bit plush. Unless anything happened to change that, she would blend in better without anything covering her. She wore boots for the first time in her life, and she learned how to properly mix the clay that Ace helped apply in an even layer across her body. She didn’t shy away or flinch when he touched her. He was a man, and men weren’t to be trusted. But his touch didn’t bother her, and Furiosa found herself wondering why.

He’d produced a tin of oily-smelling paste from one of the many pockets of his pants; axle grease, he’d called it. He started by filling in the spaces around her eyes, then painted out a half circle shape on her forehead that she’d seen other War Boys sporting.

“Black and white… Those are our colors, Boss. We live and die by ‘em.”

Furiosa accepted the name like she accepted many parts of her new life. She wasn’t sure just how it had stuck. Maybe Jii and Grate had gone and told their mates of the ‘boss’ new War Boy who was coming to live with them. As for the army itself, the mass of War Boys who made up her abuser’s legion… They didn’t ask questions, didn’t wonder where she had come from. Ace had told them that they had a new body to welcome into their fold, and welcome her they did. The fact that she was female was irrelevant. Her name was Boss, Ace said she was legit, and she was one of them now.

Once, Furiosa had sisters. Now she had brothers; hundreds of brothers. Baby brothers and little brothers, skinny and scarred brothers. Sick and dying brothers.

She learned how to fix cars. At the beginning her pants were light and baggy, but by the end of the fifth day the weight of all of her new tools, all of the bulging pockets, had her seeking out another belt to hold it all up with. The Pups were her best teachers, starting her off with the basics and showing her what tools fixed what problem. Furiosa recalled her childhood in the Greenplace, how the children there, including herself, had never needed to fix anything. That was what the grown-ups did. She’d been a weed-brained kid, with scraped ankles and stained clothes. Responsibility had been the last thing on her mind. But now, when a car came rolling up into the repair bay with its driver complaining of a shaky clutch, and she was able to dive under the hood and fix the problem instantly… Furiosa admitted that it made her proud.

The transition from concubine to mechanic wasn’t a seamless one, though. Furiosa had been appalled by the food at first. Gone were the days of chia and leafy greens, the occasional slice of fruit. She was introduced to beetles and lizards and ration squares. _Mercy, those ration squares_. She supposed that they did their job though… She was never hungry after she ate one, even if licking a wall probably tasted better.

And then there was the religion. Well, religion in the loosest possible sense. ‘Cult’ was a better word. The War Boys and the Pups she bunked with acted as if she hadn’t known anything about the Immortan before she’d become one of them, and wasted no time in educating her in the ways of V8.

When a convoy came home with one less body than had left, and the survivors spoke in hushed, reverant tones of the brother who’d taken a dozen bullets to defend a first-timer against would be raiders… Furiosa had a hard time caring. There was a pang, a twinge of disappointment… But mostly she was surprisingly numb. The others had said that their mate was waiting for them all in Valhalla, a place with no rust or dust, no lumps or disease. Everything there was shiny to the eyes and cool to the touch, powered by the Holy V8. It was there that they would all ride eternal, led by those who they had given their lives for and who had raised them out of the ashes to be born anew. They Who Grabbed The Sun, the God-Men. The Immortans.

She didn‘t feel the need to waste the energy to correct them.

She learned that Ace was something of a patriarch to the entire War Boy legion. Babysitter, story teller, playmate, advisor, enforcer, judge. Father. A majority of his days were spent with the Boys, overseeing car repairs and assessing weapons and ammunition stores. Ace was fond of guns, and every time someone asked her to go find Ace, or see what Ace had to say about something, he would either be hovering close by or in the Gun Hall. When he wasn’t butting heads with the big Boys, he tried to give the young ones as much of his attention as he could. Visits after-hours to the Kennel were common, and these nights were filled with extra food rations snuck from the line, play fights, and stories.

But, more than the Immortan and the cult of V8, Ace liked to tell them about the Saints.

“They say,” he told them confidentially, in the cool and safety of the Kennel, “That there are people who wander the Waste. Not Buzzards or scavengers, but others. Others who’ve lived before the After-Time. People who knew the world back when it was alive.”

Some of them had huddled close to each other, entranced. Furiosa found herself leaning forward, hanging on every one of his words.

“Those are the Saints. Those are the ones who’ve suffered so much that even Death don’t want ‘em. They go wanderin’, surviving like we do, and each of them carries a virtue with ‘em. Depends on how much they were broken. Pain Saints, Saints of Loneliness. Endurance Saints. Anger Saints. Point is, you don’t know who they are or what their virtue is. You don’t know when one’s gonna slide up to you and pull you down into their suffering. Or, sometimes… they can lift you out of it.”

That night, after everyone had been shooed off to bed, the last of the lanterns blown out, Furiosa had stared up at into the darkness and thought about Saints. If Ace was to be believed, they were as real as the teeth in her mouth. She wondered if Joe could be one, the bastard. If so, his virtue would be Cruelty. No mistake about that. But her logic told Furiosa that it probably wasn’t so. He was an ugly old liespitter, but he only pretended to be otherworldly.

Pressing herself against a shivering little brother, Furiosa thought about Endurance. _What a virtue. I wonder what one of those Saints are like._

\---

Furiosa received the first reminder of her delicate position late one morning, after a shift in the Garages. She sat with some other Pups who’d finished up as well, wiping the grease from their hands and enjoying the cool of their stone den before they had to trudge back up to the heat. They were about to finish up the last of their cups of water and do so before another Pup entered the Kennel and sauntered up to them.

Grate had begun to stretch since Furiosa had initially met him. Now he was just a head shorter than her, and he’d been given permission to get his first scarmark. A fact he liked to flaunt to anyone he could stop and tell.

“Where were you today, Grate? We could’ve used you, Cranky Frank came back in with a blown tire.” Grate was nonchalant, spreading himself out on the floor with his hands behind his head.

“I was training. Some of the Boys think I’m lancer material, want me keep at it.”

This produced a chorus of laughs from the others, and even Furiosa felt the need to tease him. “You’re too skinny to be a lancer, you’d get blown right off the back of the car.”

A blush of color visible even under the clay bloomed across Grate’s features, and he tried to defend his pride from his place on the floor. “N-no! _You’re_ too skinny! I bet you couldn’t even lift a Thunderstick, much less chuck one!” He would have continued, if yet another Pup hadn’t come bursting in and galloped to where they all sat. He braked, breath coming in short little puffs as he placed his hands on his knees, exerted from the sprint he’d no doubt just taken.

“…Where’s the fire, Zigzag?” The Pup looked up at his name, and Furiosa could tell instantly that something was wrong. She knew. Zigzag grimaced, sucking in a breath to speak as tears started to pool in his eyes.

“It’s Fletch.”

They were all up on their feet and running before he had time to explain. Instead of heading back to the Garages, they followed the tunnels that went down, letting Zigzag lead their little group deeper, deeper.

Furiosa had never been to the Blood Shed before. There had been no need, and from what she heard from the others it was a place you never wanted to be. You only ever wanted to pass it in order to get to the Altar Room. Another place in the underbelly she had no desire to go to.

A short hall, a small winding stair, and she was the last to file down into the shed. It wasn’t a large facility, pretty much what it was described as; a shed of stone, with a long rock slab chiseled into the wall on each side. Soft blue light came in from a crack in the ceiling, and by this light Furiosa could see large cages spaced evenly above the slabs. Some of them were empty… most of them were full. She shuddered at the sight of the men suspended by their feet, a bright red line attaching them to the sick War Boys that sat hunched below them. The saddest thing, she realized, was that most of the bloodbags didn’t even attempt to fight. They were so emaciated and broken that they just… let it happen.

And then she saw him. It was only a profile view, but it was enough to jog her memory. She recognized the greasy, paunchy man who walked from Boy to Boy, snorting and hacking and not bothering to wipe the spittle that clung to his lips and chin.

_The Organic. Oh mercy, oh mercy._

He’d been there when she had first been sent to the Vault. Pressing firm fingers into her hips and gazing lecherously at her bare body while the Immortan had watched, nonplussed. He had been to one to deem her a healthy full-life, and also the one who had announced that, as it turned out, the fruit wasn’t ever going to be ripe.

_“Dud’s a dud, boss. This one can’t produce scrap, no milk, no babies. I say toss ‘er before the investment was completely wasted.”_

_“…Agreed.”_

Furiosa couldn’t move. The floor had become wet cement and her boots were stuck firm. _He’ll recognized me. He’ll tell Joe, he’ll drag me back there. They’ll make sure I stay gone this time, they’re going to kill me._ But no spark of recognition lit up in the man’s dull eyes as he registered her standing at the shed entrance. Finally, in an exasperated grunt: “Get on, Pup. Don’t just stand there gawping, say bye-bye to your mate before ‘e croaks.”

It took her a long moment to realize that, no, he didn’t recognize her. How could he, she had no hair and was slathered in dried clay. She nodded, walking on shaky legs past him, resisting the urge to wretch as his odor wafted her way.

Her friends were all crammed into the corner, surrounding the Pup they had come here to see. Fletch had developed a cough that had progressed into something else, and two days ago he had been sent down here. He lay beneath an empty cage (for this Furiosa was grateful), his breathing coming in long, painful draws. Furiosa sat beside him on the ledge, taking his hand in hers when none of the others would. Caressing his palm, she watched him struggle to breathe, feeling her own heart contract in her chest with sadness. Fletch’s eyes fluttered open after a while. They lolled in his head, trying to get a sense of where he was and who he was with, before settling on the Pup sitting closest to his head.

“…Zig? That you?”

Zigzag’s lip wibbled. “Yeah, Fletch. Me and Grate and Boss, we’re all here for you.”

Fletch closed his eyes, trying one last time to take a deep, clear breath. On the exhale he opened them again, and his expression was full of sorrow.

“I’m not going… to Valhalla. I know I’m not.”

“Hey! Don’t say that!” Grate butted in from Fletch’s other side. “You are! You are, because we’re all gonna witness you.” The others voiced their agreement, patting Fletch’s chest and head. He sniffled, pulling a wry smile.

“Not… a very shine way to go.”

Furiosa, who never spoke more than she had to, felt the urge to do so now. “No… But it’s not the worst way.”

Fletch considered this as he struggled to breathe. Finally: “You guys can… have my tools. You don’t…. clean yours well enough, anyways.” They all laughed at this, and Fletch managed another smile. Amazingly, he had the strength to lift his arm up, making a vague gesture with his fingers. Motioning someone over.

“Boss. C’mere.”

They moved out of the way for her as she took Zigzag’s place, grasping his arm and gently lowering it down to his side.

“What is it, Fletch?”

His voice was so whispery and soft that Furiosa had to lean down to hear him. He breathed into her ear, and she felt something inside her break. She pulled away when it was clear that he had nothing more to say.

“What did…?”

She turned to the Pup who asked, shaking her head. They all nodded, retaking their places.

They stayed with Fletch until he died. When he failed to breathe again, the Pups raised their arms up, crossing their fingers and bowing their heads. Furiosa didn’t salute with them. She bit her lip, reaching over to close his eyes.

His tools were divided up among them, with Furiosa inheriting his biggest spanner. The Pups implored The Organic not to do anything with the body until Ace came down to give his respects, and slowly, they all ascended the stairs. Once again Furiosa was the last to follow. She stared at Fletch’s body, heartbroken and irritated. There was something she was supposed to do. Not the V8 salute, that gesture did not belong to her. There was another gesture, from the place she had come. A gesture of acknowledgement and loss. But, like trying to catch a moth on the wing, the memory of it evaded her. How long had it been since she had been brought to the Citadel? Three thousand days, give or take. That was long enough for her to forget.

Instead, she gave his hand one last squeeze. “Goodbye, Fletch. I’ll miss you.” She let go, turning back towards the exit, not noticing the look The Organic gave her as she climbed.

She slept apart from the Pups that night, finding an alcove in the hallway she could tuck herself into. She cried herself to sleep, and dreamed that Fletch was alive and could breathe clearly. That he left the Citadel and trekked across the Wastes for her, past mountains and canyons and dunes, to her place. To her Greenplace.

The next morning, the Legion assembled on the edge of the parking bay to hear the Immortan speak. A War Rig was on its way to the Bullet Farm, exchanging greens and water for ammo. Even from her place in the back of the crowd, Furiosa could see him from his skull-shaped perch. His bulk seemed to take up the whole space, and through the microphone his voice was oppressive and heavy, booming.

_“Today I salute my half-life War Boys. It is they who ensure our mortal security, and who will earn their eternal reward by my side in Valhalla.”_

The Boys threw their hands up and saluted, hollering and stamping, tears running down their faces in ecstasy. Their cries of “V8! V8! V8!” echoed in the bay, cacophonous in the space. Furiosa shrunk back from the crowd, like on the day when she had escaped the lift and had met Ace. No one saw her go, and she recalled Fletch’s final words to her.

_Don’t let them win._

She wouldn’t, or course. She’d find a way out, she’d find a way home. She would hurt the ones who had hurt her.

The memory of her interaction with The Organic the day before came back to her, and Furiosa vowed that she would never fear anything ever again.


End file.
